Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro says all future operators of the Darwin Private Hospital will be required to provide private maternity services under a new government mandate — but one critic says it could take years to get a new ward up and running.
Calvary Health Care is expected to take over the private hospital before the end of the year after Healthscope shut down the private maternity ward, blaming declining birth rates, and went into receivership last year.
On Thursday, Ms Finocchiaro said while the transition may take time, Calvary and any future operator of Darwin Private Hospital would be required to provide a full maternity service, including private obstetricians and midwifery care.
She dismissed concerns the new policy could discourage private providers from taking over the hospital and would not commit to the government stepping in if birth rates, soaring operational costs and staff shortages once again become a burden.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro says the new legislation will protect families from losing key services in the future. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)
"Calvary have just been picked by the receivers as a strong choice to run this hospital," she said.
"They have to have done their homework to be able to stump up and say that they can deliver the services.
"What we're doing is saying, 'you are not welcome here unless you deliver maternity', and as I said, they've already indicated their willingness to do that."
Jenny Mitchell, who worked as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Darwin Private Hospital for 28 years, welcomed the government taking steps to provide certainty for the future, but said rebuilding a ward would take at least two years.
"It's not just obstetricians that we need in the private hospital, we need paediatricians to cover the babies, we need the anaesthetist to provide a 24-hour roster," she said.
"There's no equipment anymore, it's all gone. There are no midwives, there's no nursery nurses.
"So I'm not sure where the government thinks that Calvary is going to pull these people out to get a maternity service running."
The closure of Healthscope's Darwin private maternity ward follows a nationwide decline in maternity services, which obstetricians have described as an "absolute crisis".
Ms Jenny said Calvary would also be facing a number of challenges threatening its survival of a new ward, including rising costs of private care and private insurance.
"There were 380 deliveries in 2024 and before that when I first started it was like 800 or 900 deliveries [a year]," she said.
Sophia Emberson-Bain, co-lead of Our Birth Our Voice, has been advocating for better access to maternity services for over a year. (ABC News: Marcus Kennedy)
Maternity advocacy group Our Birth, Our Voice organiser Sophia Emberson-Bain said the decision was a "big win" for Territory families.
"It's something that we've actually as a group been calling for from the day that it was announced that Healthscope was dismantling private maternity services," she said.
The legislation is expected to be tabled in parliament next week.